#Cluster sampling vs convenience sampling

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Cluster Sampling: Types, Advantages, Limitations, and Examples

Explore the various types, advantages, limitations, and real-world examples of cluster sampling in our informative blog. Learn how this sampling method can help researchers gather data efficiently and effectively for insightful analysis.

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Research | Population vs Sample and Sample Strategies

via Scribbr

Within the context of research, a population is the entire group a researcher would want to draw conclusions on, whilst a sample is the group from which the data would be gathered to represent the population. The population can be defined based on a variety of factors, such as geographical location, age, income, etc. It can be very broad, or extremely specific based on the topic of research. Sampling itself can be divided into two sections;

Probability Sampling : A random selection of the population, allowing for strong statistical inferences about a given group.

Non-Probability Sampling : A Non random selection based on convenience or a certain criterion or criteria, allowing for easy collection of data.

Probability Sampling Methods

Probability Sampling is mainly used in quantitative research. It means that every member of the population has a chance of being selected. If the goal is to produce results representative of the whole population, probability sampling techniques are the most valid choice. These can be divided into four groups;

Simple Random Sample

Systematic Sample

Stratified Sample

Cluster Sample

The first technique dictates that any random member of the population has an equal chance of being selected. Therefore the sampling frame should include the whole population. To conduct this, RNG or other chance based techniques could be used to gather a sample. Systematic sampling is similar to simple random sampling, but it is usually slightly easier to conduct. Every member of the population is listed with a number, but instead of randomly generating numbers, individuals are chosen at regular intervals. It is important to make sure that there is no hidden pattern in the list that might skew the sample.

Stratified sampling involves dividing the population into subpopulations that may differ in important ways. It allows you draw more precise conclusions by ensuring that every subgroup is properly represented in the sample. This method involves separating the population into substrata based on characteristics such as age, gender, or other relevant factors. Based on the overall proportions of the population, the sample must be reflective of that ratio. So, the sample is formed by calculating the the number of people based on the size of the strata. After this, any of the above two sampling strategies could be used.

Cluster sampling also involves dividing the population into subgroups, but each subgroup should have similar characteristics to the whole sample. Instead of sampling individuals from each subgroup, you randomly select entire subgroups. While this method is better suited to dealing with large, dispersed populations, there is room for more error within the sample, as there could be substantial differences between clusters.

Non-Probability Sampling Methods

This sampling technique is based on non-random criteria, and not every individual has a chance to be included in the sample. This type of sampling is cheaper and easier to access, but runs a larger risk of sampling bias. If a non-probability sample is used, it must be as representative of the population as possible.

Non-probability sampling techniques are often used in qualitative research. The aim is not to test a hypothesis about a broad population, but to develop an initial understanding of a small or under-researched population. This too, can be divided into four groups;

Convenience Sample

Purposive Sample

Snowball Sample

Quota Sample

Convenience sampling is the most self-explanatory; it includes a population that is most accessible to the researcher. While it is easier, there is no way to guarantee generalisable results. Another method of sampling similar to this is voluntary response sampling, which involves voluntary action to help the researcher (eg;- an online survey). Alas, this method of selection is also somewhat biased, as some people are inherently more likely to volunteer than others, and thus are likely to have stronger opinions on a given topic.

Purposive sampling involves selecting a demography that is most useful towards the topic of research being conducted. It is often used in qualitative research, where the researcher wants to gain detailed knowledge about a specific phenomenon rather than make statistical inferences, or where the population is very small and specific. When using this method, a strong rationale and criteria need to be made clear based on inclusion and exclusion.

If a population is harder to access, a snowball sample can be used to recruit participants via other participants. This is also susceptible to sampling bias, as there is no way to guarantee representation of the entire population based on the reliance of other participants to recruit more people.

A quota is a non-random selection of a predetermined number or proportion of units. This is the basic premise of quota sampling. To find a quota, the population must be divided into mutually exclusive strata, and individuals would be recruited until the quota is reached. These units share specific characteristics, determined prior to forming each strata. The aim of quota sampling is to control what or who makes up the sample.

via labroots

So how can this be applied to my primary research methods? In terms of the survey, first we must determine the population. The primary purpose of this survey is to gather data on the general Sri Lankan population's attitudes towards their daily commute to school or work. The secondary purpose is to garner if the average Sri Lankan student or salaryman enjoys their daily routine, and whether they would be doing something different. Since the demography is more vague (mostly being based on geographical location), the responses would be a result of voluntary response sampling; the only factors that I can control are the platforms that I post the survey on and whether or not participants share the survey on their own public networks.

These sampling strategies are more applicable to my focus and control group initiatives. The purpose of these two groups is to gather qualitative information on the population's attitudes towards a Solarpunk future, whether these attitudes change based on animated content, and to measure the change between those who have seen the animation and those who haven't. The population in this case would be those at university. Why? This is because it is statistically likely that those who attend AOD are culturally diverse Sri Lankans, between the ages of 16 and 25 (Gen Z), belong to families of a moderate to high income bracket (which would heighten their access to information), and are more versed in non-traditional problem solving skills as a result of majoring in design.

As I am looking into qualitative research, I would have to use a non-probability sampling strategy. Convenience sampling would be ruled out as it is a more unreliable strategy, as would quota and snowball sampling. This leaves purposive sampling, which fits well into what I am trying to do; gather data on a small specific population on a niche concept/idea. For the purpose of this research, as mentioned earlier, I would like to gather a section of the current L4 batch (which as it happens, is representative of the population of AOD). This is due to their cultural diversity, age (as Gen Z, they are more likely to be progressive and environmentally conscious), and most importantly their experience in design- which at this point is not as much as the average designer but more than the average person their age. Due to the nature of them being exposed in large part to the standard education system, which prioritises subjects such as math, science, etc., and just breaking into the design field, these students could offer fresh perspectives on the topic of my research.

This could be taken a step further; looking at the L4s, I could conduct multi-stage sampling by including an element of stratified sampling; depending on if I can procure the necessary data on those from my campus.

Now that I have narrowed down what kind of strategies I want to use for my primary research, I can move on to curating a new set of questions based on this information.

[apothecarinomicon]

Spring week 3, part 1

I felt much better this morning. I suppose whatever sickness fairy visions impart is strictly transient—or maybe dealing with reagents has given me a good immune system. 

When I went outside, I found that I’d somehow managed to plant the foxsocks in the garden. I don’t know how I could have done it in my feverish state and I certainly don’t remember it, but there it is. The foxsocks seem to be thriving already, or at least to have a solid foothold. As I’d hoped, they should be reliably available from here on out.

As I stood there, sleepily puzzling over the garden, I heard a screech from above. Looking up, I saw what at first appeared to be a large bird circling down towards the ground. When she landed, though, I saw she was a woman with wings instead of arms, talons instead of legs, and a feathered tail, wearing a khaki uniform—a postal harpy. She greeted me while balancing on one leg and asked me to confirm my name. I told her and she introduced herself as Liùsaidh. She indicated I ought to retrieve my mail from her talon (it’s polite to wait for their permission). She asked if I might be sticking around and I said I thought I was. She said she’d see me next time I got mail and flew off.

What she’d brought was a letter, with a return address listed as “The Gleoclas J. Ledgerwood Muſeum of Magicke.” It was a single handwritten (actually, impressively calligraphed) page. The spelling and grammar was, shall we say, characteristic. It’s easier to just stick the letter in between the pages than copy it down, so that’s what I’ll do.

To whom it may concern:

It has come to our attentionne at The Friends of The Gleoclas J. Ledgerwood Muſeum of Magicke that ye are a practicing vvitch reſiding in the hamlet of Greanmoore. We would like to congratulate ye on your appointmente and hope you find the positionne both fulfilling and rewarding. We had brief correspondence with your predeceſsor and were glad to learn of yovr presence.

The Gleoclas J. Ledgerwood Muſeum of Magicke is among the premiere magical muſeums in northweſternne High Rannoc. It has one of the moſte exhauſtive collections of magical materials, svbſtances, and hiſtories native to High Rannoc in the vvorld. Academicks, travelers, and school field trips regularly reference and reſearch the Muſeum’s collections in their purſuit of more compleat knowledge.

As The Muſeum of Magicke does not have a repreſentative in Greanmoore or the surrounding areas, we have a requeſte to make of ye if you are willing to fulfill it. We pride ourſelves on the compleatneſs of our Magickal Components collectionne, but we are miſsing many of the species native to Greanmoore and its svrrounding locations. We humbly ask that ye help vs remedy this deficiency. If you are willing to do so, we woulde requeſt that ye send one of each magickal componente available in the area to the Muſeum, at the returnne addreſs listed above. Should you do so, ye will receive compenſationne.

We hope ye will partner with vs in this endeavor. Your contributionne to societal knowledge shall be greatly appreciated by generationnes of reſearchers, thinkers, and touriſts.

Eagerly avvaiting your reſponſe,

The Friends of The Gleoclas J. Ledgerwood Muſeum of Magicke

[A plain text accessible version of this letter is available here.]

Obviously, the spelling is horrendous. This might have been forgivable a few decades ago, but the shape of the ‘s’ (that is, it not being that odd ‘f’ looking thing sometimes) and the distinction between ‘u,’ ‘v,’ and ‘w’ have been standardized since before I was born. Not to mention, the Ledgerwood Museum is associated with the University of Arcbridge—so there must be someone there who knows better.

The thing is, for a long time the only people who could write were those who received higher education, so the vast majority of documents that exist throughout history have to do with academia. So, even as reading and writing became more accessible and spelling and grammar more standardized, that outdated irregular styling retroactively became associated with education, with decorum, with genius.

I’ve never really had much respect for that kind of posturing—I think that if you’re brilliant the content of your writing ought to speak for itself. You shouldn’t have to so explicitly climb on the shoulders of those who came before you, especially not by intentionally making the mistakes they made or using the outdated styles they used.

I sent back a letter inquiring about the specifics of compensation along with a sample of my foxsocks.

I’m going to the library.

 ────⊱⁜⊰──── 

The Greenmoor Public Library is near the center of town, not quite in the square but on Market Street directly off of it. It has some interesting architecture: it looks as if it was originally three separate buildings the size of single-family houses, that were all connected up at a later date by a circular addition between them so that the final building looks like a cog with three spokes. Each section of it is made up of a different material—exposed stone, lime render, and brick for the original houses, and cement for the central cylinder—but it all works together in a quirky, oddball way.

There are no internal walls in the library—even where there must have been external walls in the original houses. They must have knocked them down (I don’t envy that job). Every wall is lined with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, and in each of the spokes there are many close-set freestanding shelves besides, with only narrow aisles left between. At the center of the center is a circular desk, and around this are scattered tables with benches and clusters of armchairs for convenience of reading and research.

The library is owned and run by Donella and Saundra Glasford, an older couple. Saundra is actually the schoolteacher, but she helps with reshelving and organization on weekends. I know this because Donella explained it to me in detail. As soon as I walked in the door she stood from behind (within?) the circular desk and approached me, insisting that she give me a tour of the library. In addition to a survey of the entire space and what kinds of books it contained, this ‘tour’ involved a hefty amount of insight into the daily lives and routines of the Glasford family. 

They have a kid named Muiredach, who’s very interested in ancient things at the moment—giant skeletons and the like. Donella has lived here her entire life but Saundra moved here forty years ago. Saundra’s expertise is in thaumatology (specifically thaumatozoology, the study of magical animals), in which she has a degree. Meanwhile, Donella has extensive knowledge of literary and epistemological history, though she received no formal schooling past twelve.

After she finished showing me all the different sections and layouts of the library, Donella told me I should feel free to poke around as much as I wanted. She added that I wouldn’t find any secret passages or hidden rooms, and that they had nothing to hide.

I hadn’t realized before she said that what this was all about.

I told her that the rumors weren’t true, that I wasn’t some Government spy or anything like that (I heard Saundra mumble something like “well you’d also deny it if you were a clype, wouldn’t you?”). Donella quickly assured me that she believed me, but then said “better safe than sorry,” so I’m not quite sure she actually did. I told her I didn’t understand where all the suspicion was coming from. Saundra piped up, saying that I was a stranger who came to a small, isolated town I had no prior relation with to fill a position whose previous occupant had mysteriously disappeared, and asked if I understood how that looked (not in quite those words—her accent and dialect was rather strong). I told her I’d been summoned directly by Mòrag McKinney, and had the paper trail to prove it. I asked if she thought Mòrag was involved in some conspiracy, too. She shrugged and said she was just saying how it looked.

Donella said regardless that I should feel free to use the library—it was for the public, after all—and pointed me in the direction of the section on rune magic. Thus, the conversation ended, but my uneasiness didn’t entirely abate. Still, I’d come to the library for a reason.

The rune section was limited, but I didn’t need to know any more than the basics. I’d only ever been taught one way to create runes, and it was clear my predecessor used a different one—all I needed to do was to figure out which and I could reverse engineer the runes’ meanings.

I found that she used a combination of the witches’ circle and magic square methods, which are both apparently very popular. I wonder why I was never taught them. Both systems derive the shape of the sigil directly from the letters of the intentions they’re meant to invoke. It’s traditional to remove the vowels before doing so, but luckily for me my predecessor chose not to do that.

So, with a bit of work I was able to determine that the sigils I copied down meant: life, autonomy, gentleness, congeniality, and empathy respectively. It was clearly built to be a very kind golem. Now that I know that, I’m going to try to create my own sigils and charge them, and see if that helps.

 ────⊱⁜⊰──── 

While I was at the library, I also collected a few of the greatest works of modern literature—Lord of the Midges, Beathag’s Choice, To Kill a Gull-Drake, et cetera. The next morning I packed the books into the rucksack I’d used to travel to Greenmoor and set out to take them to Morna, heading to Hero’s Hollow by way of Moonbreaker Mountain.

As I skirted the base of the mountain, I heard a voice call out from above me, crying “hey, you! Groundling!” It was clearly far above me but somehow also quite loud. I looked up and saw, blotting out the sun, a great hot air balloon.  I’d heard vague stories but had never seen one in person before. The most striking part of it was the balloon itself, made of canvas patterned beige and blue and larger than a house. The top half of it (as I was informed later) was enclosed by a net, which had metal rings on its edges attaching it to a tangle of myriad ropes and cords. These in turn held aloft the basket, which was not the simple platform I’d seen described in books but rather looked like a small sailing boat, complete with railings, rotors, and a steering wheel.

The voice announced that it hadn’t seen me around before and that I ought to climb aboard. A ladder with metal rungs unfurled over the side of the boat, just low enough that I could reach it if I jumped. I did so after making sure my rucksack was firmly on my back and shut, and climbed up to reach the aircraft.

The man onboard was only slightly taller than me. His white shirt was rumpled and stained with oil, and his left suspender was fraying. The thick goggles on his forehead, held together with large bolts and screws, were the only thing keeping his thick black hair from whipping in all directions with the wind (mine, in contrast, had already become hopelessly tangled). His sleeves were rolled up, but his forearms were covered by brown leather fingerless gloves, with metal studs that flashed in the sunlight as he hauled the ladder back onto the balloon. He wore a mask over the lower half of his face, with a cylindrical chamber marked “O2” sticking out from each cheek. Directly in front of the mouth was a clear window, so that I could see his lips moving when he spoke. He offered me a similar one and I accepted—the air was rather thin so high up. I could see him say something that was drowned out by the wind, and then he beckoned me towards a door. Given the shape of the craft, I wasn’t surprised to discover that it led to a kind of captains’ quarters.

Inside, the wind wasn’t quite so brutally loud and I could actually make out what my host was saying. He introduced himself as Captain Akash Majhi, aviator extraordinaire, and asked if I needed a lift. I said it might have been a bit late to ask since I was already on the balloon, which made him chuckle. I said that since he’d offered, I was headed to Hero’s Hollow, and he replied that that would be no problem. I noticed as we conversed that he only made eye contact when he was speaking—when I spoke, he instead watched my lips.

As Akash turned to pull a lever on the wall, I asked where he was from. He didn’t respond. With the lever pulled, a large strip of the ceiling rotated so that a piece of what had been the floor above—the piece to which the steering wheel was attached—became the ceiling of this room. Akash then tapped what seemed to just be a wooden accent covering a swath of the metal wall above the desk and bed. The wood slid to the side, revealing a bay window through which he could see.

He took his place at the wheel, positioning me in his field of view, so I asked again where he was from. He told me he was a proud resident of the Cloud Isles. I told him I’d never heard of such a place, and he said I really must be new to the area. Belatedly, I told him my name and that I had in fact only moved here a few weeks ago. He told me that the Cloud Isles were just that: islands in the clouds, with wildlife, ecosystems, and culture. At the center was a great city that, yes, was attached to the clouds, but had mostly been built flying between and amongst them by generations of architects, donors, engineers, artists, and aviators like himself. 

I asked him where the city was located and he vaguely waved his hands. “Here and there.” He said that as the clouds drifted so did the Isles, but that the city itself never strayed too far from Greenmoor—otherwise, mapping and resource-gathering from the ground below would be difficult or impossible.

I asked him how I might visit the Isles, and he told me I’d need to be able to fly. He said the general ethos of the residents leaned towards mechanical solutions, but he had heard that there were magical ways of flight as well. I said I would have to look into that. He handed me a business card with his name, “balloonist | engineer | aviator extraordinaire,” an address, and a smoke signal pattern to use to contact him. He said if I was ever in the city he’d be happy to show me around. Then, he announced that we’d arrived.

We went back onto the deck and he unfurled the ladder over the edge. I  went to hand him the oxygen mask back but he told me to keep it—they were expensive, but he had plenty and I’d be needing it when (and he did say “when”) I visited the city. I thanked him, shook his hand, and started descending the ladder.

 ────⊱⁜⊰──── 

I made it back to the ground (the hop down from the ladder was smaller than the hop up had been), and smoothed my hair down before setting off into the Hollow. I’d only barely made it into the skull when my plans for the afternoon abruptly shifted.

It was just around midday, so the guards must have been on break or between shifts. Hurrying out of the dungeon was a group I recognized—it was the Lows, the mining family. Angus was carrying the son in his arms. The boy was clutching his thigh, and even from a distance I could see blood seeping through his fingers.

Crystal spotted me and immediately called out to me, thanking the gods for my arrival. I hurried to them and guided them back to the cottage, where I knew I’d be able to better determine how to treat the issue. Morna would have to wait—I had a patient to tend to.

⇦●〇●⇨

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Learn Statistics and Data Analysis Intuitively

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Sampling Distributions in Statistics

Probability Sampling

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HBO Max is live: $15/mo for a massive library, significant headaches

Like it or not, another subscription streaming service has entered the chat.

This one—HBO Max—debuts across the United States on Wednesday, and it comes from the combined AT&T-Time Warner media empire. After taking shape in 2018, the new “WarnerMedia” cluster of film and TV content has since put together a streaming library of exclusive content—particularly by yoinking content away from Netflix and other partners, in apparent defiance of AT&T’s antitrust pledge to US Congress.

WarnerMedia didn’t make the service available to Ars Technica ahead of the launch, so I jumped into the fray by claiming a free seven-day trial on launch day and picked through its first day’s content and interface. I did so to answer the following question: has WarnerMedia pulled off a service worthy of a $15/month fee?

Not necessarily.

They’re still running three services simultaneously

The easiest sales pitch is for anyone who already happily paid $15/mo for HBO Now as a standalone service. HBO Max kinda-sorta replaces HBO Now, because the former has all the same content as the latter. Pay the same, get more. If you thought HBO Now’s selection of HBO-specific series and films was worth its high price, you’re the luckiest potential user. And if you were using HBO Now on Android or iOS, its app has simply turned into HBO Max. Easy peasy.

That makes us wonder: why does HBO Now still exist? One reason is that existing set-top boxes and services support paid subscriptions to HBO Now, sometimes as a bundled package. Another reason is that some set-top boxes, particularly every single Roku and Amazon Fire TV device, currently work with HBO Now, but do not work with HBO Max.

Confusing things further, HBO Go also still exists, but this is a holdover attachment to cable-TV subscriptions that offer HBO Go as a perk. WarnerMedia had to produce the following video to try and explain things, and the result is unintentionally hilarious:

HBO Max vs. HBO Now vs. HBO Go… yes, WarnerMedia officially made this video.

And the question of whether you might get HBO Max for free with your existing cable or streaming services remains a bewildering mess. HBO Now continues to direct users to the older apps, in spite of HBO Max being advertised as an included option from providers like Charter, Verizon, Cox, and (unsurprisingly) AT&T and its subsidiaries.

There’s also the matter of WarnerMedia’s last-minute announcement of a lower-priced, ad-supported tier for the service. But how much will it cost, and when will it arrive? The industry giant isn’t saying yet beyond a vague “2021” window.

Not quite the theme park we’d hoped for

The opening splash screen.

Sidebar.

More sidebar.

On its first day of operation, HBO Max already has a “last chance” page of expiring content.

The opening page for any series has a massive sample screen.

You have to scroll quite a ways to pick through more episodes, though at least the season-skipping interface is nimble enough.

When watching videos on a desktop web browser, the interface largely resembles HBO Now, complete with the “rewind 15 seconds” button. You won’t find that convenient toggle on every platform, however.

Once you actually get into the service, HBO Max looks like it germinated from a different era, when the streaming universe hadn’t fractured into a zillion pieces. Its landing page looks as simple as “Netflix, but with our exclusives.”

Comparatively, Disney+ showed up late last year with smart ideas about how to crash the streaming-subscription party. The most brilliant is its first-impression divide into five major categories: Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic. Opening Disney+ feels like walking up to a theme park, seeing five enticing gates, and knowing they’ll each have a ton of content behind them. (Of all the companies to get that right, this one makes sense.)

HBO Max can’t make up its mind about whether to hew to that archetype or to the massive-dump-of-content standard seen on the past decade of most other streaming services. The top of the interface is an unsurprising scroll of “featured” content, and this sees HBO Max puffing its chest about major exclusives: the ’90s NBC series Friends (duh, it’s still one of the world’s most popular TV series), some HBO Max exclusives, and some HBO-produced series. Below those are some “featured” scrolls of TV series and films, arguably based on popularity, then a clever “every Harry Potter film in order” block—again, a hugely popular streaming exclusive, so that’s good for HBO Max to highlight.

You’ll need to tap your remote six times (or more if you’ve built any “previously watched” and “my watchlist” libraries) to scroll down and reach the “HBO Max hubs.” These massive buttons resemble Disney+’s intro splash, and they do a better job attaching a personality to the service… but not by the same margin. Small buttons are assigned to DC (as in, DC Comics), Sesame Workshop, Turner Classic Movies, Studio Ghibli, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Crunchyroll, and Looney Tunes. “HBO” gets a stupidly oversized button.

Hub hopping

HBO Max’s hubs.

The 25 series in the Cartoon Network hub, as of launch.

HBO

The 9 series in the Adult Swim hub, as of launch.

HBO

A visit to the Sesame Street hub reveals a peculiar organizational issue: categories that link to entire episodes. Those “spoofs and parodies” are tucked into longer episodes, and HBO Max doesn’t use timestamps to let watchers skip directly to the relevant bits. It’s an unwieldy attempt to guide viewers.

HBO

I created a “child” account to see what the interface looks like for kids under 13. It’s harder for them to find “hubs,” and they are instead shoved into age-gated clumps of content.

HBO

Clicking on HBO takes you to a less polished, less neatly organized version of HBO Now. Pick the “series” tab, and it’s an alphabetical dump of a most every HBO series with zero additional narrowing. If you’re in the mood for “every HBO comedy series,” you’re out of luck; you’ll have to pick through every drama and thriller on your way to find beloved comedic fare like Mr. Show and Silicon Valley, let alone to figure out which series count in which category. Curiously, stand-up comedy gets a dedicated tab within the HBO-specific interface, yet the “series” tab also includes a bunch of separate stand-up comedy.

The only genre-specific tabs generate a massive list of content from every hub. The overlap between bright-and-cheery Cartoon Network content and HBO’s darkest comedies feels less than ideal. (If you’re wondering, you can easily set parental controls to make sure Adventure Time isn’t a few clicks away from Barry.)

Some of the other hubs lead to clearly incomplete collections. Adult Swim is the worst offender at only nine series in all, while the DC button is HBO Max’s weirdest stumble. It has a plethora of content, sure, but what about recent, buzzed-out series like the Harley Quinn animated series or ’90s classics like Batman: The Animated Series? Sadly, those aren’t here, because they’re exclusive to one of WarnerMedia’s other streaming-subscription services, DC Universe. So much for corporate synergy. (Confusingly, Doom Patrol, a series that debuted on DC Universe, does appear on HBO Max.)

I can’t complain about the Turner Classic Movies or Looney Tunes selections, on the other hand, which are monstrous. The former, which at launch sports a whopping 454 films, borrows liberally from the Criterion Collection—enough that you could cancel that collection’s subscription service for a few months while picking through its HBO Max redundancies. (Be aware that TCM counts some interesting films as “classics,” but we’re not about to argue about the “classic” designation of flicks like Police Academy or Godzilla Raids Again.) The latter, meanwhile, includes hundreds of original Looney Tunes theatrical shorts throughout the years—but, gosh, HBO Max. It’s a pain to pick through the shorts as arranged in “seasons,” as if they originally aired on TV in a certain sequence, and the service only launched with three “collections” of classic shorts. Families could’ve used a hand to pick through more of this content, perhaps with more character-specific playlists? Or collections dedicated to beloved directors like Chuck Jones or Tex Avery?

I’m not an anime diehard, so I can’t speak to the seemingly anemic selection in the Crunchyroll tab. But at least the Studio Ghibli collection has nearly every one of its acclaimed films. (The holdouts are Grave of the Fireflies and the studio’s co-production work on a Lupin the Third feature-length film.)

Lack of 4K, lack of “skip opening credits”

Among the most boneheaded parts of the HBO Max rollout, however, is its utter lack of 4K content, let alone 4K combined with HDR. The same goes for Dolby Atmos surround sound. Why are these features missing? If history is any answer, the lack may be because HBO never built support for those standards in its other official apps.

That issue feels all the more glaring when HBO Max locks up films as exclusive content. If WarnerMedia wants new users to flock to its service instead of rivals’, guaranteeing 4K access to Wonder Woman, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and other 4K showstoppers would be a worthy, competitive move. But WarnerMedia has only suggested that 4K, HDR, and Atmos support are “on our roadmap,” which is as toothless a guarantee in the streaming-app landscape as they come.

On the other side of the resolution spectrum, HBO Max is careful not to aggressively crop older videos that were originally meant for 4:3 televisions. That’s great news for the video-ratio purists at Ars Technica. You don’t have to start an online petition to get the original, uncropped versions of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, folks.

Beyond those issues, HBO Max has a paltry selection of newly created, “only for Max” content: six short series, each three episodes or fewer. It’s unclear why the company even bothered with this selection, since it sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the dozens of films and series with a shiny red N on Netflix or the same kind of content found on the likes of Hulu, Disney+, Amazon Video, and even NBC’s soft-launched Peacock.

All of the above is to say: there’s a mountain of content on HBO Max, and quite a bit of stuff that counts as both popular and critically acclaimed, but the service does an awful job laying out a mat for new users to discover it. The hub-based spread of content is a pain to pick through, and so many selections (biggies like Friends and Harry Potter, plus content from Turner TV stations like Conan) don’t appear in those hubs. And it’s missing quality-of-life features you might come to expect from a streaming service, including a “skip opening credits” toggle or a “rewind 15 seconds” button-tap. (The latter tap option only appears when using HBO Max on a desktop Web browser.)

Thankfully, the basic experience of queueing and watching things you search for works just fine, and again, this library is massive—and includes multiple bottomless wells of beloved libraries. But many of these, particularly Looney Tunes and Sesame Street, deserved better. Instead of virtually leading fans into a neatly organized theme park, HBO Max asks its users to crash through the glass door of a badly managed Blockbuster Video.

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Amperometric Sensors Help Improve Chlorine Measurement Accuracy

A major water company operates a cluster of Malaysia SEA municipal water treatment facilities that serve a large urban population. With its tropical climate, this region in Malaysia is heavily dependent on gathering surface water for its supply of drinking water. This water source poses special disinfection challenges for the engineers responsible for the company’s water treatment facilities operation.

Surface water enters the company’s treatment facility and immediately is dosed with chlorine. This initial disinfection stage removes all algae and other forms of aquatic life. The water then enters a flash mixer and moves into sedimentation tanks to remove any remaining solids. More chlorine is added to oxidize any manganese, iron and sometimes hydrogen sulfide. The addition of chlorine also eliminates odors, taste and color.

The filtration and sedimentation stage of the process removes the largest portion of unwanted organisms, so less chlorine is necessary in the subsequent stages of treatment. This means that as the process progresses, there is less contact time for disinfection, requiring close monitoring and careful dosing of chlorine to achieve the desired results.

During the final stage of the disinfection treatment process, chlorine again is added to treat the water when it enters the distribution network. The chlorine travels with the water throughout the distribution network on its way to end-customers, which ensures the final delivery of safe drinking water.

Water disinfection with chlorine has been one of the most important public health achievements of the twentieth century. Chlorine eliminates many disease-causing organisms, such as cholera, hepatitis A, typhoid fever and dysentery. Chlorine also has been beneficial in eliminating slime bacteria, algae and molds that can grow in reservoirs.

Chlorine continues to be a popular water disinfection treatment method because of its relatively low cost and availability around the world. There have been many methods developed to measure chlorine and thereby determine correct dosing concentrations, including the standard N, N-diethyl-1, 4-phenylenediamine sulfate (DPD) colorimetric method and several types of amperometric and polarographic methods.

The Problem

For many years, the company’s cluster of water treatment plants had maintained and controlled its chlorine dosing with the help of an automated colorimetric analyzer. The analyzer was supposed to determine the correct amount of chlorine to dose into the water at each stage of the disinfection process.

Determining the correct level and dosing of chlorine is a critical step in ensuring that the proper amount is added to disinfect and remove any types of pathogens from the raw water. The colorimetric analyzer, however, is not a real-time measurement device, and this created problems with improper chlorine dosing.

Depending on the time of day, the weather conditions and other variables, the concentration of pathogens in the untreated water could vary significantly over 24 hours. That led either to dosing with an insufficient amount of chlorine or adding too much into the process. As a result, the treated water often had to be returned to the disinfection system for a time-consuming, expensive second treatment.

The high cost of maintaining the colorimetric analyzer was another issue. For effective operation, the plant staff had to keep changing out the system’s reagents on a monthly basis. The caustic reagents also led to the frequent failure and replacement of sample pumps. For the same reason, tubing had to be replaced frequently.

All these issues resulted in a high cost of maintenance and a high cost of ownership with the colorimetric analyzer. The overall result was an expensive chlorine treatment process that required too much staff time and too much retreatment with additional chlorine at a cost higher than necessary to ensure clean water service.

Understanding the Chlorination Process

When chlorine is added to water treatment processes, it forms hypochlorous acid (HOCl) and hypochlorite ions (OCl-). They are the primary disinfecting compounds in chlorinated water. The amount of these compounds present in the water available for disinfection depends on the pH level of the water.

If the pH drops to 6.5, the acid form is 90% HOCl and 10% OCl-. At a pH level of 8.5, the alkaline form predominates as 90% OCl- and 10% HOCl. Hypochlorous acid has roughly 10 times the oxidizing power of hypochlorite. The sum of these two chlorine compounds is referred to as “free chlorine,” because it is “free and available” to disinfect the water.

Colorimetric vs. Amperometric Sensing

The DPD colorimetric method of water analysis has been the industry standard technique for chlorine measurement for many years. It is a simple test that can be taken in less than five minutes with test strips or crushed powder that requires visual analysis for measurement.

Determining with the naked eye or a color scale how “pink” the test strip is to determine the amount of chlorine present in the process is one of the problems with the colorimetric method. This manual method also does not provide real-time chlorine measurement, and it requires manually taking the test at the process location.

With an automated colorimetric analyzer, a sample is taken every few minutes and the results are reported on a display. Even though the analyzer system is automated, the data are not providing a real-time measurement (two- to three-minute cycles), which was causing problems for the water company to properly dose its process. Dealing with the monthly accruing cost to replenish the reagents required for the analyzer was another issue. Disposing of the reagent waste that the analyzer produced also became a headache. Proper waste management was required.

By comparison, amperometric analyzers provide real-time chlorine measurement. There also are no messy reagents to deal with monthly. The sensor relies on two electrodes (anode and cathode) to provide chlorine analysis. They measure a change in electric current caused by the chemical reduction of hypochlorous acid at the cathode.

The electric current flowing between the two electrodes is proportional to the chlorine concentration. The electrode’s membrane and an electrolyte solution help to control the chemical reaction. Care also must be taken to control the flow rate and pressure to obtain an accurate measurement.

Solution

To solve the problems with its chlorine disinfection process, the water company’s process team contacted the engineering firm Bosmann Solutions PLT to review the chlorine measurement issue. The team at the engineering firm reviewed the chlorine measurement problems and recommended replacing the colorimetric analyzer with the FC80 amperometric analyzer from Electro-Chemical Devices to provide much-needed real-time chlorine measurement and to reduce the maintenance issues.

The water company’s process engineers appreciated the fact that the FC80 analyzer is a panel-mounted, ready-to-use full system. It is designed to monitor free chlorine in drinking water, rinse water, cooling water and other water samples from 0.05 to 20 ppm chlorine as the standard range or 0.01 to 5 ppm with the low-range sensor. It is compliant with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Method 334.0 for measuring drinking water.

The FC80 analyzer features a plug-and-play design that incorporates a constant head flow control device, a pH sensor, a chlorine sensor and the T80 analyzer/transmitter conveniently mounted on a PVC panel. The water company found the instrument setup relatively easy; it required only one technician with no special tools to connect the sample and drain lines, then connect the power and outputs, and it was ready to use. Calibration is accomplished by DPD comparison due to environmental regulations.

[Visit ECD’s WWD Storefront]

Amperometric chlorine sensors are flow-, pH- and temperature-sensitive. The minimum required flow by the sensor is 0.5 per second; above this value, the output is virtually flow-independent. A “constant head” flow control device (CFD) maintains the optimum flow past the sensor over a wide range of incoming sample flow rates. The minimum flow required for the CFD is 10 gal per hour, and the maximum flow is 80 gal per hour, with the sample going to drain at atmospheric pressure. pH and temperature are compensated for with the digital S80 sensor for a reliable measurement. With the manufacturer providing a complete panel-mounted analyzer system, the water company plant team recognized its value in that there was nothing else to purchase or install in a sample conditioning system.

Conclusions

After several months of use, the water company reported that the accuracy of its chlorine measurements had improved greatly and had eliminated the need for extra disinfection retreatment cycles. Consumption and costs for chlorine were lower, which also is environmentally friendly. The plant staff also found that the elimination of the reagents required by the colorimetric analyzer had reduced sample pump and tubing maintenance and replacements, again requiring less staff maintenance time and entirely eliminating the monthly expense of reagents.

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The Generational Anomoly

The current generational model that many pop-sociologists, newspaper columnists and marketers cling to may be a convenient framework, but it is one that is not fit for purpose in an ever shrinking and ever fracturing and more complex world. The most robust academic work in the field, the grandly titled Strauss-Howe generational model is, even to its champions, an Anglo-American-centric tool for historical framing and to its critics, a vast generalization with little empirical evidence to support its core thesis. As appetizing as an academic deep-dive on this may be, I shall limit this to thinking about recent generations and their utility (or otherwise) as a tool for understanding people, cultures from a brand perspective

 The idea of these 20-year monocultural blocks in human time was born out of the post war baby-boom, particularly in the united states and were the beneficiaries of the post-war American high, rapid growth of mass culture and mass consumerism as well as a marked increase in living standards and leisure time. They were also the first group to be dissected from the outside by marketers, and in many respects it the reinforcing messages made the idea of a ‘generation’ and its particular spirit and outlook a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 That the ‘boomers’ and then after, the Gen-Xer, in the US were the two most convincingly coherent cohorts and that may be no coincidence, not just because they were researched, written about and sold to in a way that molded them into a coherent whole, but also, economically speaking, in the west, they were more ‘whole’. On the ‘soft side’ you have a golden age of mass broadcast media and on the hard side you have, what is in the long history of pre-industrial, industrial and post-industrial capitalism an anomaly – a decrease in inequality. Now, not to get all Piketty about it, but with good working class wages and earnings doing better than assets, there was a chance for people of the same age across a broadly similar cultural backdrop to have similar experiences, and similar possibilities open to them, socially, professionally, educationally. Historically, this is a aberration, as the young country squire and the young peasant would have never felt part of a similar generational identity, but with decreasingly inequality, relative prosperity, mass media and a world that still felt big and un-PC enough to forget about those defined as the ‘other’ – non-capitalist, non-white, non-EU/US, we could lull ourselves into thinking that this was a world where neat 20-year blocks of people could be in it together.

 Of course if we had of take a global view in the 70s when the idea of the ‘boomer’ the first marketable generation was being popularized we may have seen the fallacy of that, but we didn’t, it stuck and now in an ever shrinking world we can somehow post-rationalize the theory because we all have smartphones. Of course, we cant, and in fact, everyone doesn’t have a smartphone at all. The world is smaller for those who can afford to shrink it, which is a self-selecting and self-confirming sample. The reality is, birth year is a very poor proxy. A 24 year old urban Jakartan vs. a 24 year old in an agricultural area of Sumatra will be very different. The Jakartan may have a lot in common with a 24 year old in downtown Sao Paulo, but likewise he may have with a digitally saavy 53 year old in Berlin. Likewise the our son or daughter of the soil in Sumatra might have more in common with a middle aged Bavarian farmer.

 An age based- monocultural theory works in a monoculture, as the post-war US was to a large extent ( god forbid anyone do anything as pluralistic as declare themselves a socialist, or be black and ask for rights, for that matter) but so the what was age acting as a proxy for in that self-selecting blinkered process. What are some of the key axes, the indicators that can allow us to start forming some useful cohorts, that we can map against populations?

 Urban vs Rural

A key indicator, which has a huge bearing on your views, outlook and interaction with the world – shapes the kind of influences that you are expose to, the amount of risk and reward available to you and the kind of stimulus you have to shape your view. A rapidly urbanizing world offers us a dangerous confirmation bias to the idea of homogenous aged-based international cohorts…

 Education Level

Which itself acts as a proxy for many things, including affluence and even more strongly, political inclination – the higher your educational attainment, generally the more liberal you lean, at least within the normative framework for your cultures political spectrum

 Key Life stage Markers

Another where Age was a useful proxy, but longer, less linear lives and changes in aspiration (when it comes to kids and settling down) and hard headed reality, especially when it comes to urban housing mean that it is not an accurate or useful global proxy any more)

Marriage, parenthood and Home/property ownership are all massive deciding factors shaping someone outlook and view. Where many of the western-centric generalizations about Millennials fall down in Asia is that it fails to remember how much younger people still have children and that, particularly in less equal, more patriarchal skewed set-ups, as 24 year old without a child is more different to a 24 year old with than she is to a 40 year old without

 Digital engagement

One that,, if Google and many over tech utopians have their way, will eventually disappear as a discerning factor, but the reality is that globally we are not yet at a stage when this can be disregarded. Access is uneven, can be patchy and often for many as a proportion of income (another key factor) too expensive to be ‘always on’

 Optimistics vs. pessimistic

How do you see our future? How do you see the world? Naturally this will be influenced by any number of things, but it is important to take into account. There are many with huge advantages in developed nations who are negative in their worldview, and the converse is true in many more difficult to live in cultures and situations. The importance of outlook should not be overlooked

 Of course, taking a mapping based on these, you would expect to see age, driving certain clusters in certain countries, but interesting to see is how that matched up against other groups else way. A Vietnamese urban 20-something might really tally with an affluent, upbeat suburban boomer on America’s east coast…!

 Of course the danger here is veering in the opposite direction, but the point is we must realize that time and age are a poor proxy and no guarantee of some kind of universal human generational experience